Saturn's Hyperion: A Moon with Odd Craters

Coast Guard Video of Flight 1549

Via Powerline


I blame global warming.

Weclome Freepers, check THIS out.


And from CNN

Jack Shafer is Nuts

Jack Shafer writes for Slate and he's nuts.

And he thinks we're stupid.

Here's why. He begins his insane rambling with the headline...

Obama's New Press Strategy

Subhead:

Soon to be the "one president at a time," he starts schmoozing the press.

Now that’s crazy. Why would Obama need a new press strategy? His current one is working and the first thing you learn is that when you’re doing what works, don’t stop.

Has there ever been a more compliant press corps in the history of the Republic? My own Virginian Pilot is having pressroom orgasms over Obama. The “BIG O” has found the press’ “G” spot and is not about to change positions.


Shafer:

Barack Obama's brain trust understands the insecurities of the press. How could they not? The campaign's chief strategist, David Axelrod, was a star political reporter for the Chicago Tribune. But rather than feeding and caring for the press, the Obama campaign worked the media's insecurities to their man's advantage, largely freezing reporters out in a successful effort to control his message.

I wonder what color the sky is in Shafer’s world. In mine Obama was everything the press wanted: Black, Liberal, anti-war and not Bush. On top of that he was photogenic, gave good speech, and had adoring fans – some of which were teen agers not members of the press corps.

Shafer:

,,,Obama campaign denied the Washington Post editorial board an interview with their candidate...

Why waste your time when the Post’s endorsement is a given and its “news” coverage is everything you could hope for? And he did stop by later, to the Post's delight and praise. Pragmatist-in-Chief: Barack Obama offers some reassuring signals about his coming presidency in a visit to The Post.

Shafer:

So having won the election without wooing the press, what is Obama's new press strategy?

He didn’t have to woo them; they threw themselves at him and showed him their thong. They were as hard to get as Monica Lewinski. And gave him the same treatment.

Shafer:

In a November column, I predicted that despite Obama's skill and luck at managing the press, a war between the two was inevitable.

And how's that working out for you Jack?

Shafer:

Even though few of my predictions ever come true, I'm willing to double down on that original prophecy.

As Glenn Reynolds would snort: HEH! The surest way to go broke in the market is to double down on a losing position. In press puditry, it's a job enhancement credential.

Shafer:

As our financial crackup widens, the auto industry goes under, and 15 percent unemployment follows, the nation will experience economic pain that aches, then burns, then stings, and finally throbs. Because every political issue connects at some level to economics, Obama will become the focal point of the crisis and the target of the media's critical cameras and hostile pens. Will he wish he'd put some goodwill in the bank? Either way, it will be war as you've never seen before. Grab a hat and a helmet.

What a silly little man. Doesn’t he realize that the press’ passion for Obama has nothing to do with what he does; it’s all about what he is? And does Shafer have absolutely no knowledge of history at all? Franklin Delano Roosevelt presided over the Great Depression, but the press and history gave the blame to Herbert Hoover on whose watch it began.

The press will no more turn on Obama than a beaten wife will turn on her husband. It’s a sick relationship that is usually ends only when one or the other dies. At this rate, and given the diagnosis, I’m betting the press dies first. But not before we hear more blather about our famously free, independent and adversarial press.

The Virginian Pilot Pens Its Ode to Obamamessiah

Beginning with the American Idol cover and leading to comparisons to George Washington and Abraham Lincoln.

Coming up in The Virginian-Pilot
o Cabinet carousel
o Expectations poll
o Presidents in crisis
o Inaugural milestones
o Inspired by Obama
o Obama odes
o An Obama trivia quiz
o Children in the White House
o Picking the first dog
o First ladies
o First lady gowns

Presidential News

o Obama: Orderly succession a tribute to US
o Sources: Obama ready to end harsh interrogations
o Stimulus plan repeals big tax break for banks
o Cancer-stricken colonel in command at inauguration
o Inaugural history: The exuberant parade of 1905
o Major troop decisions for Afghan war await Obama
o Obama: 'Dramatic action' needed now to fix economy
o Obama honors Hickman, Tuskegee Airman
o Source: Obama to name Sunstein his regulatory czar


Local Presidential News
o First Colonial students off to D.C. for gig with history
o Presidents' words capture mood of their times
o Follow The Pilot at the inauguration on Twitter
o Where the stars will be at the inauguration
o Will the inauguration have enough port-a-potties?
o At-home guide to the inauguration: schedule, TV coverage
o Got questions? Here's the Inauguration Day 411

MORE


o Big changes to Obama stimulus plan
o Obama plans to unveil big tax cuts this week
o President-elect plans to unveil big tax cuts this week
o Obama inspires changes for black press

The Virginian Pilot has always been an interesting microcosm of the Liberal South, self-congratulatory and racist in a way that only Liberals can exhibit racism. To the Southern Liberal it’s all about race. It’s all about helping black people up, about giving them a hand, about making reparations, about telling them how bad their parents and grandparents had it and how bad they have it because those evil people (the ones that are not Liberals) hold hate in their heart and do bad things.

So they treat them like children or pets. And they have their token black employees (although there are now fewer of them due to layoffs).

But if you do that to people they will despise you; and rightfully so. If you find someone who does not take you seriously, does not treat you as an equal you learn to dislike, even to hate. If you continually give someone something, you will not develop and independent person, you develop a dependent, a client. If you enter a race and cross the finish line, even if you did not win, you can have a sense of accomplishment. If you are carried across, there is no accomplishment to the one carried, but the carrier can pat himself on the back. And that’s what the Southern Liberal does. Even worse, if I were to hear people express pity for me because of some characteristic such as the color of my skin, I would learn to hate those people.

An independent adult resents pity and patronization. And that is what the brand of people who go to work at the Virginian Pilot represents. Even today, they do not see Barack Hussein Obama as the man who is entering the most powerful office in the world. They see him as a symbol of a people who they “just want to help.” To them, he’s not the President with a tan; he’s the Black Man in the Oval Office.

Which is the reason why Obama, the person who – in our history - has the fewest qualifications to enter the office of the Presidency, is likened to Abraham Lincoln. They are still carrying him across the finish line and will never let him run his own race.


Pravda was a beacon of journalistic truth and technical prowess compared with the Virginian Pilot

No media mudballs this time

Powerline takes us back in time via the Wayback Machine to see how previous inaugurations were handled by the press.

Read the whole thing. Here's how it ends...

The day before Bush's swearing-in, ABC's Web site pleaded for tips of "any military funerals for Iraq war casualties scheduled for Thursday, Jan. 20." Sure enough, then-ABC anchor Peter Jennings got his wish to report how "just about the time the president was speaking, there was a funeral for a young Marine reservist: 21-year-old Matthew Holloway was killed in Iraq last week by a roadside bomb." Don't look for the networks to use such tactics to sour Obama's celebration.

The moral issues related to torture are not a slam-dunk.

From NPR.

Really? That's not what we have been hearing from NPR before is it?

What is the difference this time .... wait, wait, let me think what the difference is this time ....

I question the timing.

So, Obama stopped by the Washington Post to reassure them.

Redstate comments on the fact that when you removed the

meaningless statements, vague gibberish, useless qualifications - in short, all the goo and dribble - he found he had nothing left. Everything canceled out.

(from the Foundation Series by Isaac Asimov). See below for a fuller explanation.

Via Glenn, here’s their first and last paragraphs, with my executive summary in the middle:

PRESIDENT-ELECT Barack Obama came to The Post editorial board yesterday with two messages sketchy on details yet reassuring in approach: a commitment to fiscal discipline, and a determination not to be bound by liberal, or indeed any, orthodoxy.

[snip of the President-elect not answering their questions about what he plans to do about controlling the budget, determining what financial sacrifices need to be made, when - or if - Card Check will be passed, what changes - if any - will be made to our current detainee system, and whether all of this means that he's a centrist.]

Mr. Obama’s indications of ideological flexibility are rather abstract at this point; he has not yet been called on to make the kind of difficult choices about which he speaks so eloquently. But his transition has sounded all the right themes, and, if yesterday’s session is any guide, his presidency promises to begin on the same hopeful, pragmatic note.

For my response, here’s an Isaac Asimov quote from Foundation (pg 71).

“That,” replied Hardin, “is the interesting thing. The analysis was the most difficult of the three by all odds. When Holk, after two days of steady work, succeeded in eliminating meaningless statements, vague gibberish, useless qualifications - in short, all the goo and dribble - he found he had nothing left. Everything canceled out.

“Lord Dorwin, gentlemen, in five days of discussion didn’t say one damned thing, and said it so you never noticed. There are the assurances you had from your precious Empire.”

Obama is not the first politician to do so, but to be given a pass on it by ALL the MSM is an indication that we really don't have a "free press" any more - in the sense that we have a diverse, press that expresses various points of view. It may be free, but it's free only in the same sense that the Democrat Party is not technically an arm of the government.

Except when it's the government and in charge of all three branches ... and the media is its obedient ally.

Gaza

"I'm the Most Experienced Vice President Since Anybody"

Mickey Kaus"

“I know as much or more than Cheney." Mr. Biden said. "I’m the most experienced vice president since anybody.” Wow. a) Biden has no private sector experience after age 30, right? b) How insecure is this guy? Getting close to dangerously insecure, no? ... And here we we'd just succeeded in explaining away the "I have a much higher IQ than you do" aria of credentialist braggadocio. ...

And the MSM go "Oh, that's just Biden" and praise his intellect.

MSM Deathwatch Cont. (Status Anxiety)

Dr. Elissa Clouthier

The Mainstream Media, it be troubled. As in, there are photographers like this Twitter guy who did on-the-spot citizen journalism (Was his picture less newsworthy because he wasn’t a reporter by trade? At this writing over 56,000 people have viewed it.) and there are commentators like me, who report and interpret real-time events like the debates or President Bush’s last speech to the nation. I can read the transcript and watch the President speak tonight and then comment on it (the President has aged and looks weary despite his optimistic talk). How is that different than the paid commentators?

Her comments are worth reading in full.

But in the "Replies" section is a commentary that is so full of wisdom that I need to reprint in full:

I agree that newspapers are dead men walking, and it seems the vast majority of reporters, editors and columnists are willfully blind to the irreversible descent into oblivion. It is primarily because of this denial, and the failure to admit the reasons for the death of the newspaper, that the demise is now unavoidable. Because now the public wants them to die.

Until the last 18 months or so I think newspapers could have turned it around. If they could have summoned the intellectual honesty and moral courage to have recognized and admitted their many years of bias and partisanship, and taken credible steps to correct those gross errors, I suspect there are enough core newspaper readers who would have forgiven them so that the industry could have survived.

It would not have been easy, because a majority of reporters and editors, particularly at major metropolitan papers, would have had to have completely changed the way they did their jobs. They would have been required, for the first time in the careers of many but the longest tenured, to have reported fact as opposed to opinion. They would have been forced to learn how to write objectively and without any motive or goal other than to write clearly, concisely, informatively and accurately. I think if they could have shown that moral courage and a genuine desire to change, most of the reading public would have stuck with them.

But that’s moot now. The newspapers can’t even admit what is happening to them, much less why. In a way, much like papers did for public figures for generations, they are preparing their own obituary before hand. The difference is, the newspapers can’t bring themselves to tell the story straight. Anyone who is paying attention can see the narrative they’re already trying out and polishing up: it was that damned internet, and “Bush’s Depression”, which killed the newspaper industry. Even with death staring them in the face they can’t admit what happened,

And that was that they drove away their readers. They didn’t lose them; they actively drove them away, offended them, insulted them, kicked them down the stairs. They ignored, hell they scoffed at, decades of complaints from their readers, their customers, about reporting that was editorializing, and editorials which were partisan handouts. The newspapers treated the dissenters from orthodox modern American leftism as non-persons. The funny thing is, those non-persons happened to make up a huge chunk of that newspaper readership which might be described as “heavy-duty news consumers”. So when those non-persons saw that the internet and podcasting and citizen journalism provided much more of what they wanted (transparency of bias, objective reporting of facts) they left the newspapers in droves. And they’re still leaving. Very soon now the advertisers will catch on that the newspapers’ subscriber numbers have been grossly inflated for years, and that will be the fall of the pillar which is holding up the portico. The collapse of the industry will be unlike anything we’ve ever seen, and it’s possible that within a two-year span we could see a loss of perhaps 2/3 of newspapers currently published. The magazines will be neck-and-neck with them to destruction, and the television news industry will fail shortly after.

The sad thing is, it didn’t have to happen. Readers begged the papers for years to hear their cries. Readers weren’t even necessarily asking for a change in perspective or particular editorial polices as much as they were asking for an end to the practice of advocacy journalism, and editorials passed off as straight news stories.

All we wanted was transparency and a modicum of fairness. But what we got instead was even more spin. We had inflicted upon us the outrage of Election 2008. When the news media as an institution, as an industry, completely abandoned any pretense of disinterest, and actively and openly campaigned for a presidential candidate. Even as newsrooms are on the verge of being packed up, we former newspaper readers are treated to stories of entire newsrooms breaking into applause as “their candidate” gets encouraging results. In 2008 the news media as a whole showed that it was a party to national politics, not its chronicler.

And that is why today, former readers will not only sit on their hands when the industry begs for help; will not only turn away or turn a channel when another story about forlorn freshly unemployed newstaffers pops up - no, instead we former readers will take a kind of sad pleasure in seeing the industry die. Because that’s how destroyed the relationship between the papers and their readers is. Former readers will have a sense of reckoning, of a settling of accounts, in witnessing the death of the newspaper, because the newspaper industry as a whole finally declared what had been seen for years but had never been admitted: that the papers had picked a side. And the majority of the news industry picked a side other than the one their former readers were on.

So we’re not on the threshold of watching the demise of the news industry; we’re just seeing a political adversary fold its tent and disappear into the night. There’s not a lot of regret when that happens. And that’s a shame, because it didn’t have to be. But arrogance and contempt for a huge chunk of your customers is a guaranteed formula for failure.

I cannot understand, and never will, why the people who run newspapers think that hiring a columnist who makes it his job to insult the paper's customers is a good investment. It's as if I hired a receptionist whose role is to tell people who call me to go f**k themselves.


Here, from the Virginian Pilot, is an example.
Donald Luzatto is actually paid by this paper to write stuff like:

The Republican Party of Virginia owes me money and an apology because, like everyone these days, I'm outraged. Outraged! By everything!

Last week, the leader of the Grand Old Party implicated journalists in "shameful" and "vicious" attacks against his candidates. Ordinarily, it takes meeting me to reach that conclusion. He also called the media "elite," which sounds OK, but I'm pretty sure he doesn't mean it in a nice way.

Picking on Jeff Frederick, the 14-year-old head of the RPV, is - I know - poor form. But he started it.

The party's boy wonder, who also happens to be a state delegate (a fact that explains so much in Virginia), last week spammed the planet with an electronic fundraising missive ... etc.

For those who don't know, the Pilot is currently run as a charity by the immensely wealthy Batten family who tried to sell the thing but got no takers. Pat Robertson considered buying it and turning it into a student newspaper for his university, but decided against it, apparently figuring that it would take too much upgrading to bring it up to college newspaper standards.

In the last year the Pilot's been hemorrhaging writers and editors including some of the top people (rats leaving a sinking ship is the image that comes to mind) and even the paper it's printed on will shrink to save money. But like the patient on life support, we know it's only a matter of time. This patient I won't mourn after it's passing.

Rick Sanchez is and Ass and Proves It Here.

Via Glenn Reynolds: JOE THE PLUMBER ANSWERS HIS CRITICS

Israeli combat video

Getting the message out.

Intelligence Court Upholds Government's Warrantless Surveillance Intercept Power

Strange. We have been told by the brightest people at the best law schools that these particular warrantless wiretaps were illegal. And they were the brightest people in the room.

Media Death Watch Cont.

Another one bites the dust.Star Tribune files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy

Limbaugh Reads Andrew Klavan’s Big Hollywood Masterpiece

Click on the link to listen.

Link:

Geithner is a tax cheat and media's OK with it. He's THEIR tax cheat.

http://news.aol.com/political-machine/2009/01/14/i-predict-geithner-nomination-fail/:

I Predict Geithner Nomination Fail...
And here's why:

Where Are My Keys?:

When you call out Obama during a rope line, the Media jumps into your history, and finds a tax lien you didn't know you had.

If you are nominated for Treasury Secretary, and have four years of taxes you knew you owed, but didn't pay, the Media yawns.

Comment at Instapundit

A plumber owed $1,000 in taxes that he didn't even know about... ...and it was headline news!

American Thinker:

In this case, we have a rich, well-educated nominee of Obama's who knowingly failed to pay his taxes, paid some when he was caught out and failed to pay others which he knew were barred from prosecution because of the passage of time, and paid those only now when it was certain the issue of his tax cheating would arise at his confirmation hearings for Secretary of the Treasury.
Just as the media attacks have made it extremely hard for the intelligentsia to rally around Caroline Kennedy Camelot Schlossberg, now - thanks to the foaming-at-the-mouth attacks and illegal, privacy-violating investigation of one Joe the Plumber - we're going to lose a supposedly brilliant treasury secretary nominee.

(Of course if he is brilliant, how can he be so dumb at this tax stuff? Maybe he's just corrupt? Now I feel better.)

Or, hey, try this out: the Toledo Blade and all the lefties could apologize to Joe the Plumber for making an issue out of his tax liens...

....

Naaah, that could never happen.

Give Geese A Chance

Big Hollywood:

Dear Arianna,

I’m looking for a job. What do you think?

In the wake of the events of 1-15, in which a wedge of Geese brought down a US Airways aircraft, here’s what you won’t be hearing about from the so-called “Mainstream Media”: We brought this on ourselves.

After an event such as this one, it’s important to look at the root causes: Why did the Geese attack us? Well, the truth is, for years we have been oppressing the Geese, using them for the fuel they provide for our bodies.

Boneless Goose Breast, Brandied Roast Goose, Roast Goose with Cumberland Sauce and Apricot Stuffing. And of course, the Christmas Goose. In the name of religion, we have been engaged in what can only be called a Crusade against the Geese. Is it any wonder that a few brave suicide Geese would seek revenge?

Under the neocon/neofascist Cheney-Bush administration, Goose consumption is up 1541%. Geese have been systematically deprived of their rights at a level never seen before. (Look around your workplace: do you see any Geese? Wouldn’t you be nervous if you did?) Reports of shameful anti-Goose activity are at an all-time high, mainly in the South and Midwest, of course.

The fact is, WE (and, of course, Israel) are responsible for the rise of militant Gooslam.

Read the rest.

Racial Media Bias Meets Liberal Media Bias

Sam Dealy, US News:

While Kurtz maintains that the "relative paucity of black journalists at the White House is striking," the relative paucity of conservative reporters and editors at newspapers is far more troubling. After all, the Washington press corps acts as a filter for the battle of ideas that concerns the very soul of this country. If that filter skews left, wittingly or not, then that's a problem.

Clinton Rejects Calls to Reveal More Details About Husband's Donors

From Fox News:

Hillary Clinton says she will not be influenced by contributors to her husband's foundation as secretary of state.

RIGHT!!!!

In Roman times, government officials became wealthy by taking bribes, selling citizenship, confiscating treasure, skimming tax revenue ... and that's only the beginning.

The Clintons seem to be reviving and improving on the practice of getting very wealthy as members of the governing class. After all, what better way to get favorable treatment from the US government if you are the ruler of a third world country than to "contribute" to the husband of the Secretary of State.

Ace of Spades:

Hillary Rodham Clinton, President-elect Barack Obama's choice for secretary of state, rejected calls Tuesday for more details about donors to her husband's foundation, saying she has revealed enough to avoid even the hint of conflicts. An Associated Press review found that Clinton stepped in at least a half-dozen times on issues involving businesses and others who later gave to the charity.
Clinton said as secretary of state she will not be influenced to act on behalf of her husband's contributors, which include foreign governments.

"It will not be in the atmosphere," Clinton said.

Granted, that sounds a lot nicer that "How does my ass taste, Lugar"? But I think it was the same thing.

Christopher Hitchens at Slate also sees the possibilities...

More Than a Good Feeling

Why are so many oligarchs, royal families, and special-interest groups giving money to the Clinton Foundation?

Bill Clinton speaks at the Clinton Global Initiative in Hong Kong

Here is a thought experiment that does not take very much thought. Picture, if you will, Hillary Clinton facing a foreign-policy conundrum. With whom will she discuss it first and most intently: with her president or her husband? (I did tell you that this wouldn't be difficult.) Here's another one: Will she be swayed in her foreign-policy decisions by electoral considerations focusing on the year 2012, and, if so, will she be swayed by President Barack Obama's interests or her own?

The next question, and I must apologize in advance for once again making it an un-strenuous one, is: Who else will be approaching Bill Clinton for advice, counsel, and "input" on foreign affairs? It appears from the donor list of the Clinton Foundation that there is barely an oligarch, royal family, or special-interest group anywhere in the world that does not know how to get the former president's attention. Just in the days since the foundation agreed to some disclosure of its previously "confidential" clients—in other words, since this became a condition for Sen. Clinton's nomination to become secretary of state—we have additionally found former President Clinton in warm relationships with one very questionable businessman in Malaysia and with another, this time in Nigeria, who used to have close connections with that country's ultracorrupt military dictatorship.

Oh yeah, there won't be any questions here.

I mean literally, no questions. The MSM won't ask and the Republicans are afraid.

Surprise!... Obama's Climate Czar Is Board Member of Major Carbon Offset Company ...Update: Her Husband Lobbied on Energy Issues

Via Gateway Pundit.

No conflict of interest here, she's a Democrat.